Mandatory Occurrence Report

This is the Mandatory Occurrence Report filed by the Investigator In Charge at the Honolulu Control Facility, reporting the Dec 11, 2013 water landing resulting in the alleged death of Hawaii Health Director, Loretta Fuddy. It was mandatory because the accident involved a commercial aircraft and there was a fatality. It was filed by the Honolulu Control Facility because, it says, the Operational Supervisor in Charge (OSIC) was in contact with N687MA – which means it CANNOT be classified as a “no services” accident as the FAA claimed when saying they destroyed records regarding this water landing.

2 Comments

The MOR says the accident happened at 1:20 UTC which is 15:20 or 3:20 p.m. HST. In the “Summary” it says the accident happened at approximately 01:15Z which is 15:15 or 3:15 p.m. HST. The “Summary” also says “THE AIRCRAFT NEVER REQUESTED ANY KIND OF SERVICES FROM HCF OR THE NEARBY MOLOKAI TOWER.”

The 4th page of the “Summary” says “QA reviewed the MOR summary, this event is an accident with a fatality. An independent accident investigation will be completed outside of this process. No QA actions required at this time. BN 12/12/2013.”

The way I read this, on 12/12/2013 the FAA determined that this was a “no services” accident and the investigation would be by the NTSB. So their radar and audio data was left at the normal retention schedules.

Why would only the least relevant audio (not the Molokai tower, which received the reports of the plane’s ELT, the finding of the plane, etc) be saved but not the radar – which alone can prove whether the landing happened at the time the NTSB said in their preliminary report (3:22), what the MOR said in the body (3:20), what the MOR said in the summary (3:15), or what the FAA Compliance Report said after months of investigation (3:27)? Of those FOUR contradictory times (two of them within the same document!), which do you suppose was determined after looking at the radar – the only indicator of when the plane actually went down? Why would they destroy that radar?

Could you imagine if an agency said they destroyed the radar of the plane being shot down over the Ukraine? The pilot didn’t request anybody to help him before they were shot down, after all, so the radar is “irrelevant”… (/s)